“We have recently developed new criteria for classifying individuals with chronic fatigue syndrome, which has recently been referred to as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) - and we are hoping to recruit some volunteers who would be willing to fill out some surveys to help us understand how to more accurately classify individuals with this illness.

We are hoping to gather information from both:

• Healthy individuals

• And individuals [age 18 and over] who have a current diagnosis of ME/CFS.

Individuals from both groups are vital to the success of this project because those who volunteer to fill out surveys for us will be helping our team to develop a new case definition that we hope will potentially improve the research in this field and that may one day get us closer to finding biological markers for this illness.

Your participation in this study is voluntary, but greatly needed.

The information we will obtain in this study has the potential to lead to medical treatments and a better understanding of how to diagnose ME/CFS. We would appreciate any time you can give.

The total amount of time involved in your participation in this study will amount to no more than 3 hours [for completion of a phone interview and surveys] that can be spread out over 3 different days.